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Need to address matchmaking PRIOR to any PVP initiatives!!
ayroux
Member Posts: 4,271 Arc User
I would ask that you read the below before voting yes or no.
Current Issues with Matchmaking/ELO:
1) You can lose ELO by winning a match. This has been WELL documented.
2) Mis-matched games - primarily driven by a poor "balance" system. What I mean is it will take a "1" player and a "10" player and match them against two "5" players and call it even. This is a crude but simple summary. It doesnt work. The 5s get stomped 1v1 by the 10, the 1 gets stomped by the 5s. The 10 feels frustrated the 1 is so bad and most likely the team with 5s will win because the 10 cant be in two places at once. etc.....
3) Under-geared players feel they cannot compete as a result, this DISCOURAGING queing for PVP because (its a fact) you WILL get matched against players with better gear that you have zero chance of winning - even if you are most skilled.
4) Premade teams get matched against PUG teams all the time... Again its only frustrating for the PUG team and its not even rewarding for the premade. Why do they do it? Because they dont want to lose elo....
There IS a better solution!
Step 1) Now that you have a new "gear score" system in place called "total item level" this helps accurately assess the gear of each player. So this is already done and ALSO it includes enchants - which are a big deal!
Step 2) Create an internal system OR! create an external number that shows what a players "maximum achieved item level" is. The purpose of this is to create a "benchmark" for that player so they cannot gear swap to change their total item level.
Step 3) CHANGE the que system to INSTEAD of basing "matchmaking" off "ELO rating" it bases it off of the "High Water Mark" total item level. What THIS does is it matches evenly geared players against themselves. So you dont have a 4,500 total item level player faced against a 2,500 item level player too often.
So NOW when the system goes to match teams it searches within X range of "total item level". Call it 500 or even 1000 points. As the time in que lengthens you can expand this number VERY easily.
So lets say it now finds 10 players all within 500 total item level. Now what?
Now it splits players based on CLASS.
First would be NO duplicates of any class on each team. If not possible (say it found 4 TRs) it puts 2 of each team. Or 1-2 on each team (if 3 total).
Class and gear are the TWO primary functions of "fair pvp" with "skill" playing a role but the best 2000 item level player honestly doesnt stand much of a chance against a 4900 item level player. Could he win? maybe, but its heavily stacked against him with in 90%+ of the scenarios only causes frustration.
How does this alleviate issues?
Issue 1) ELO would NOW be based on pure win/loss metrics. NO "probability of win" etc. Its a pure # that goes up with a win and down with a loss. The item level system ensures even games or atleast FAIR games. Thus you dont worry about players losing elo by winning which ONLY forces players to find manipulation of the leaderboards.
Issue 2) Mis-matched games: Well now again. SKILL is all that really matters. GEAR is "net out" because your now facing similar geared opponents.
Issue 3) Under-geared players: Well now players who just hit 70 dont feel they need to "grind gear" before PVPing because if their item level is 1600 they will only get matched against other players within their range. Isnt that the point? To pvp with YOUR character to test it against other characters within a similar range? I mean if not, then why have pvp leveling brackets? Why not take a lvl 10 round him up to 70 in a pvp match and let him duke it out. NO! lower brackets are created to pit players against similar foes so its skill that decides NOT gear.
Issue 4) Premade teams: For ANY Group, it would treat ALL players as if they are the same "total item rating" as the HIGHEST member of the group.
Example) team made up of: 3,200. 4,200. 1,500. and 2,300. Que up. It treats this group as 4x "4,200" players.
A premade will always have an advantage over pugs due to communication. This way its the premade that only would have lower item level players who may or may not get upset about facing higher geared players. Either way, premade is Que at your own risk.
OTHER CONSIDERATIONS:
This allows players to play alts more often without feeling they need to totally gear out.
This also alleviates twinking to an extent which is now a MAJOR issue with rank 12s in the fold. Since the twinks essentially only play themselves now.
The ONLY liability is some "pro leet PVPer" who WANTS to take on the higher geared players to be at a disadvantage. I have nothing to say there except: A) get better gear or
go play an SW and its the same thing.
Honestly this is what is causing the toxic community and the LACK of growth for pvp.
Undergeared players dont want to get ROFLstomped. Players dont feel they are "geared enough" to even pvp. Or players dont want to play Alts since again - not geared enough.
Players dont want to even que unless in a premade because they will get put against a premade and have no chance. Atleast THIS system ends up giving SOME "item advantage" to the PUGs. (What about a full BIS premade? There is no alleviation there that can be done, so its GG either way) but atleast THIS way gives the PUG team the "gear advantage" making premades work harder.
This will literally lift a weight off the PVP que system and alleviate some of the big issues surrounding pvp.
GG can still be free for all, OW can still be free for all.
Current Issues with Matchmaking/ELO:
1) You can lose ELO by winning a match. This has been WELL documented.
2) Mis-matched games - primarily driven by a poor "balance" system. What I mean is it will take a "1" player and a "10" player and match them against two "5" players and call it even. This is a crude but simple summary. It doesnt work. The 5s get stomped 1v1 by the 10, the 1 gets stomped by the 5s. The 10 feels frustrated the 1 is so bad and most likely the team with 5s will win because the 10 cant be in two places at once. etc.....
3) Under-geared players feel they cannot compete as a result, this DISCOURAGING queing for PVP because (its a fact) you WILL get matched against players with better gear that you have zero chance of winning - even if you are most skilled.
4) Premade teams get matched against PUG teams all the time... Again its only frustrating for the PUG team and its not even rewarding for the premade. Why do they do it? Because they dont want to lose elo....
There IS a better solution!
Step 1) Now that you have a new "gear score" system in place called "total item level" this helps accurately assess the gear of each player. So this is already done and ALSO it includes enchants - which are a big deal!
Step 2) Create an internal system OR! create an external number that shows what a players "maximum achieved item level" is. The purpose of this is to create a "benchmark" for that player so they cannot gear swap to change their total item level.
Step 3) CHANGE the que system to INSTEAD of basing "matchmaking" off "ELO rating" it bases it off of the "High Water Mark" total item level. What THIS does is it matches evenly geared players against themselves. So you dont have a 4,500 total item level player faced against a 2,500 item level player too often.
So NOW when the system goes to match teams it searches within X range of "total item level". Call it 500 or even 1000 points. As the time in que lengthens you can expand this number VERY easily.
So lets say it now finds 10 players all within 500 total item level. Now what?
Now it splits players based on CLASS.
First would be NO duplicates of any class on each team. If not possible (say it found 4 TRs) it puts 2 of each team. Or 1-2 on each team (if 3 total).
Class and gear are the TWO primary functions of "fair pvp" with "skill" playing a role but the best 2000 item level player honestly doesnt stand much of a chance against a 4900 item level player. Could he win? maybe, but its heavily stacked against him with in 90%+ of the scenarios only causes frustration.
How does this alleviate issues?
Issue 1) ELO would NOW be based on pure win/loss metrics. NO "probability of win" etc. Its a pure # that goes up with a win and down with a loss. The item level system ensures even games or atleast FAIR games. Thus you dont worry about players losing elo by winning which ONLY forces players to find manipulation of the leaderboards.
Issue 2) Mis-matched games: Well now again. SKILL is all that really matters. GEAR is "net out" because your now facing similar geared opponents.
Issue 3) Under-geared players: Well now players who just hit 70 dont feel they need to "grind gear" before PVPing because if their item level is 1600 they will only get matched against other players within their range. Isnt that the point? To pvp with YOUR character to test it against other characters within a similar range? I mean if not, then why have pvp leveling brackets? Why not take a lvl 10 round him up to 70 in a pvp match and let him duke it out. NO! lower brackets are created to pit players against similar foes so its skill that decides NOT gear.
Issue 4) Premade teams: For ANY Group, it would treat ALL players as if they are the same "total item rating" as the HIGHEST member of the group.
Example) team made up of: 3,200. 4,200. 1,500. and 2,300. Que up. It treats this group as 4x "4,200" players.
A premade will always have an advantage over pugs due to communication. This way its the premade that only would have lower item level players who may or may not get upset about facing higher geared players. Either way, premade is Que at your own risk.
OTHER CONSIDERATIONS:
This allows players to play alts more often without feeling they need to totally gear out.
This also alleviates twinking to an extent which is now a MAJOR issue with rank 12s in the fold. Since the twinks essentially only play themselves now.
The ONLY liability is some "pro leet PVPer" who WANTS to take on the higher geared players to be at a disadvantage. I have nothing to say there except: A) get better gear or
go play an SW and its the same thing.Honestly this is what is causing the toxic community and the LACK of growth for pvp.
Undergeared players dont want to get ROFLstomped. Players dont feel they are "geared enough" to even pvp. Or players dont want to play Alts since again - not geared enough.
Players dont want to even que unless in a premade because they will get put against a premade and have no chance. Atleast THIS system ends up giving SOME "item advantage" to the PUGs. (What about a full BIS premade? There is no alleviation there that can be done, so its GG either way) but atleast THIS way gives the PUG team the "gear advantage" making premades work harder.
This will literally lift a weight off the PVP que system and alleviate some of the big issues surrounding pvp.
GG can still be free for all, OW can still be free for all.
Post edited by Unknown User on
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but, will most likely be ignored cause lazy design is lazy, working as intended, and already implemented
get your logic out of here bruh, too much work
i mean, just look at the lazy *** design behind making GG a 10v10 match now...they didn't even make it so you can privately chat with the other 5 players on your team...they also let you leave without penalty, i doubt it's because they wanted it that way, it's probably just because they didn't have the time or luxury to implement the leaver penalty for GG
just saying, don't put too much faith in this team
Losing ELO while wining the match is a good thing. Imagine situation where 1 random undergeared player got matched with 4 man premade and got carried hard despite being 1-2 shoted whole match. If he would gain ELO in such game his next game would become even worse, but if he loses the ELO he may actually get a chance of being matched with players who have similar gear as him.
I dont have full date as to how exactly NWO matchmaking works but i've been beta testing Dota 2 for a long time before the relase and their matchmaking changed criteria for matching the players the longer players was in the queue (simply because it didnt want the player to sit there forever).
NWO doesnt have even 1/10 players of Dota 2 so changing matchmaking will not help but only rise queue times. NWO needs better boolstering system which increases players stats to similar level and even changes through the match. This way you can achieve very close matches even with huge gear disparity or leavers / afkers on each side. I've wrote how to do it properly in other thread so that you can prevent abusing it.
Improving boolstering is better options because it not only makes the matches more balanced but also reduces queue times.
It annoys me sometimes when i try to synq with another premade, and both premades get que pop at the same time, the only problem is that the matchmaking puts both teams against random pugs. Why would the que pop at all if it dident match the, probably, 2 only premades queing at that time.
Either way i think matchmaking needs a rework, or a "work", altho your guild should not worry too much about it since they are not premading anyway
it's a vicious VICIOUS cycle right now though...the main reason the pvp population is small and ever dwindling is because of the complete and utter mess that matchmaking is....it's just simply not fun for people to queue only to get roflstomped all over the arena because they haven't "spent" as much "time" in getting the gear other players have...this is not an advantage/disadvantage either player should have...it's something that shouldn't exist and i think we can all agree removed from the game
so, i disagree with hiding behind the "low pvp population = can't mess with it cause queues will last forever", if you make PVP more attractive to casual players, you will increase the population and decrease queue times....and honestly, the only people queing right now are really only queing cause they enjoy the combat and the very rare balanced match, they are queing against all odds, increasing queue times (i'm allowing it for your argument's sake) wouldn't really have a negative effect, at least not as much as the already negative side effects of the current TERRIBLE matchmaking do
again, the "population problem" isn't because pvp in this game itself is bad, the combat is amazing
the low population is caused because players are turned off by the TERRIBLE TERRIBLE matchmaking
If you're in a PVP guild, you only fight other members of other PVP guilds, no exception.
So PVE players, people who just want to check out PVP, people who just want to farm PVP for AD's and artifacts, can run around and act stupid and nobody is upset because nobody is from a "l33t" PVP guild who is ordering them around and demanding that they run to mid or fight on the point or whatever.
Plus, maybe, the PVP players will actually end up fighting each other from time to time instead of just queueing up to stomp pugs.
I agree with the premise and general idea, but am basically happy they are even doing anything at all with pvp. It is basically true that at end game you don't que for pvp unless you are geared and in a premade or you will almost certainly suffer humiliation. That has to be a huge chain holding what could be thriving and profitable pvp community down.
I truly hope matchmaking is fixed but I do not ever see it happening. The very best matchmaking I ever saw was a cases ladder league. So simple. Any ranked league should really give players the ability to challenge those above them on the ladder. Wins = a higher standing, beating a lower ranked player means you don't gain or lose rank and they only lose one rank.
To me, in the end, the best system for a league would team ques period. You register your premade and can either do the random League que or challenge any team ranked higher than your team. A team has to answer the challenge of a lower ranked team within 3 days. The closer the rank of the challenging team, the sooner the match. So if your team is rank 30 and you are challenged simultaneously by ranks 31, 32, and 33, you will have to meet rank 31's challenge first, then 32, then 33. This schedule would rotate with challenges your team has made. So within 3 days you play rank 31, then you play a team you challenged, then rank 33, then a team you challenged and so on. Within the top 10%, the only challenges a team is required to meet are those made by the team immediately beneath them on the ladder.
THAT kind of league would almost entirely clear out serious guild premades from the casual que and essentially solve the entire matchmaking problem we currently have and had for quite a long time.
The best and simplest match-making/ladder system ever link.
This is why boolstering system is better, as it can adjust the values through the match without increase queue times.
Well, in a ladder system where you can challenge higher ranked teams, there are constant matches because everyone wants to gain rank. Systems like this that I was in before involved several random que ladder games a day, one match vs a team we challenged and one match vs a challenger.
I just don't see NWO ever doing a bolster system like swtor. The polite way to describe cryptic would be "efficient", the other way to describe them would be "fast and easy or not at all". And I really think a bolstering system would be the opposite of fast and easy.
the sad truth...not a lot of bright, open minds working here
Yes, total item level isnt perfect but lets be honest. A player with 4000 item level PROBABLY has a good weapon enchant while a player with 1600 item level probably doesnt.
Most players know their priority of where to invest, and if they dont thats their own fault... Cant fix that.
I dont think it would create longer que times but actually shorter que times. The current system is so convoluted it ends up creating a bigger delay. Case and point is take TWO teams onto the PTR and que up for pvp. It can literally take up to 10+ minutes to que pop. We even do our best to "arrange" the teams to be "even" and it still takes forever.
Its because it tries to "match" parties on an average bases which doesnt work. If you instead made it flat and based on item level total, its objective and could find matches quickly with zero need for it to try and "balance" a 10 with a 1 for instance.
Instead balance is done BY the item level total.
Again this system also discourages premades since they would be treated as if they were ALL the max item level of the highest person.
So itll create more fair games, itll create more incentive to pvp on ANY character and create a system that "somewhat" punishes premades.
Is it perfect? No. NO system will ever be perfect.
They cant treat this game like DOTA either because it is an MMORPG. Obviously THE best pvp games are not as reliant on gear. If you remove gear incentive it removes the revenue from that.
Players want to pit their builds, their gear against others. So why not pit them against their own "gear" equivalents?
The PvP community has always been treated like the unwanted red-headed step-children since day #1 of mod 1 right on through and into mod 6. Cryptic is as always S.O.P. of PvP is S.O.S.D.D. and S.N.A.F.U. It is what it is, nothing more nothing less. If you think that the PvP system here in D&DNO is on the southside of bad, you should have been in the early days of STO FED/KDF PvP, but thats an old out dated rant at this point.
Never the less pissing and moaning, whining and crying about how bad the D&DNO PvP system is just a waste of time and trouble. The challenge is what keeps the majority of the hard core PvP'ers, like my self interested in and spending/investing IRL money/U.S.D. into the PWE/Cryptic/Arc/Games franchise, and that is what pays the bills and keeps the Corporate BigWigs and Stocks' Investor/Holders happy with a positive income cash flow.
If the PvP was all sunshine, rainbows and unicorns easy then the majority of the cash paying PvP player base marketing group would get bored and move on to other games with challenging PvP systems. now this may all sound like I am some sort of PWE/Cryptic stock investor/holder, well I am not, but I am a invested cash paying Cryptic games invester of roughly a $3.000.00-4,000.00 u.s.d. over the last 10-11 years, and at least 1/3rd of that amount into D&DNO because of my love of the games PvP and PvE systems.
I currently have 9 characters, one of each class all at lvl60+, as well as 2 new mod 6ee Oathbound Paladins, one Oath of Protection, one oath of Devotion, both now level 50ish. All 9 characters have been primarily designed and focused, made and played 90% PvP with only 10% PvE as bare minimum as wanted/needed main story arc quest missions rewards.
So as far as I am concerned about the games current PvP systems; I say, "Semper Fi" OORAH!!! aka Semper Flexibilis aka Semper Gumby: This is an unofficial motto for the United States Marine Corps, Navy Fast Attack Submarines, Navy Seabees, USCG Personnel, and the Civil Air Patrol. It is a play on the official motto Semper Fidelis, usually abbreviated Semper Fi, which means "Always Faithful", and that of the US Coast Guard, Semper Paratus, meaning "Always Ready." Semper Gumby, referring to the cartoon character Gumby, means "Always Flexible." The real Latin phrase meaning "Always Flexible" So get your head out of your <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font>$ and learn how to Improvise, Adapt and Overcome!.
If you are not able and or willing to do this, then GTFO of PvP and go back to the PvE carebear all warm, fuzzy, sunshiney all the time rainbows and unicorns fantasy fiction mmorpg content.
Thats all I have to say about D&DNO PvP Systems.
@Norisman aka Norrisman1
Yes I too and starving for something new, however if that something new comes out, but we retain BAD matchmaking... itll just turn people off.
This system is VERY simple to implement.
Heck another option would be creating "GS brackets"
So call it:
1k-2k total item level
2k-3k total item level
3k-4k total item level
4k+
If it goes longer than 5 minutes, it dips halfway into the lower + upper bracket.
So lets say 7 people were found in the 2k - 3k bracket. after 5 minutes (or maybe even 2-3 minutes) it opens it up to 1.5-3.5k Finds 3 more people, fills the rolls. DONE.
Que times will be shorter. Games will be more balanced. Less premades of "4k+ item level" players ROFLstomping 2k item level PUGS.
If they roll out a new system and all that happens is the same <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> we deal with in Domination people just get mad and dont que. We need a system that:
1) Balances matches more fairly
2) ENCOURAGES lower geared players TO pvp, not DISCOURAGES them.
3) "handicaps" premade groups
I cant think of any other GOOD system that is also easy to implement.
Currently its super complicated and its why it takes a long time. It tries to balance a group. This way it would just be objective. As long as it falls between X-X range it doesnt care about "balance group". All it THEN does is split the teams to not double or triple up on one class.
I've been on both sides of the curve and it feels bad both times. Getting stomped by people who are grotesquely more geared than you are is somewhat disheartening. Stomping people who are grotesquely undergeared than you is uneventful, boring, and a waste of time.
This thread gets my approval.
Go Cryptic!
PS - I quit.
For example, lot's of specs scale with weapons dps so players could go for BIS weapons and armor only + BIS enchants and rest of the items being low item lvl <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font>. This way they may have around 1/3 of item level compared to full BIS geared players with very little dps lose. You dont need lot's of survivality items when you have stealth or CW shield.
Improving boolstering isn't that hard nor time consuming, they just need a system which check for the score difference between both teams and players points + K/D/A. If one of the teams is losing too much, players from this team will receive short duration buffs after they respawn. This way they will have a chance to contest enemy flag and when score get's even the strenght of these buffs will decrease.
I wouldnt say thats much of an exploit... So lets say you DO do this, and only pick up MH+4/4 set and a primary mythic artifact. The rest of the gear you use like <ilvl 100 stuff and what, rank 7 enchants?
I mean your missing out on ALOT of really good gear like an AP neck, +4 stats on a belt (or maybe you get the blue and get 2 stats) either way you have MUCH less stats.
While you may be somewhat of a "twink" you also have to remember a few things:
1) If you ever party with someone with a higher item level rating YOU get "credited" with his item level (it treats the entire party as the highest achieved). Thus defeating the purpose
2) Even if you locked yourself at say 2000 item level, you can still get matched against players much higher. If the Que system is taking too long, or there are not many players within a fair range it bumps it up and you could easily get matched against players 2500 or 3000.
3) Other forms of PVP like GG, Open World also discourage this too since you will be fighting players with double your GS and trust me, it does make a BIG difference.
4) Its still MUCH better than we have now. All your 2000 "twink" character will do is end up being a strong 2000 character and stomp all the 1500-2500 players? Whats different that right now with a 4000 item level character stomping a 1500 character? Nothing. But atleast they stand MORE of a chance against a player who is much less geared.
5) MANY builds rely MORE on other stats, like deflect or recovery or lifesteal and require you to get very high stats. So its not as "linear" as you might think
6) Id imagine itll get boring, and your entire time in NW will be spent trying to avoid people who outgear you just so you can pug stomp and never premade? Not THAT many people will be interested in doing this, and again, if they do, so what? Whats different than it is now? You see maxed characters getting paired with fresh lvl 70s ALL THE TIME. Its no fun for either party.
Im not sure I agree with what you are saying here but we can each have our own opinion.
In my opinion the ELO is neither clear nor fair.
- Losing ELO for winning a game? Why even bother playing?
- ELO system matches up mis-matched teams more than it matches fair teams.
- Current system doesnt take any consideration as to class, you can get a 3 DC team on your side and on the opposing side they get 3 TRs (this mod its less a deal but last module that was BIG!)
- Players with full greens and just hit 60 (last module) or blues and 70 (this module) get matched against full Orange/Teal characters with BIS gear all the time.
It is neither fair nor clear. The current way its done also creates drastically longer Que times than necessary as well.
An ELO system only works well when there is no such thing as "gear" or "class roles". This is why FPS games or even MOBA games can use an ELO system. (Even MOBAs do have class roles though).
In MMO/RPG games you cannot purely base matchmaking on "skill" since Gear and "team Comp" end up making MUCH more a difference than "skill".
So to make a PERFECT system, you need to calculate all 3 however that (with this population) is very hard to do.
So what CAN they focus on that is easy and works with this population?
1) Gear
2) Class makeup
Obviously "skill" is important but its harder to measure or quantify and with a low population base its even harder to use as a "matchmaking" attribute.
That is the worst part and I think you are even under stating it. Skill and build can make up for a good chunk of gear discrepancy, but when you are geared as a "7" but are winning like a "10", the system treats you like a 10 and puts you on a team of 1's against two fives.
It is why, imo, it is so important to duo que as core classes (CW, OBP, TR, DC, GF) if you are not BIS. ONE team mate that actually understands dom and knows what their class role is means two nodes you can control during a match while the rest of your team runs around pointlessly. A full 5 man premade is asking for trouble imo unless you are BIS. And people say "pay to win". It is more of a buy-in to compete at the upper levels. Of people who are BIS, the most skilled will win. That is not pay to win.
Last but not least where gear is concerned. BIS in pvp is different than BIS in pve and any fair matchmaking system would have to recognize this and not just matchmake based on a common generic gear value. That ads another layer of complexity. I would love to see more conversation about pve bis vs pvp bis in mod6. In mod5, straight high end pve gear meant absolutely nothing where the player was concerned other than an indication that player does not play a lot of pvp. Tenacity goes a long way.
idiots like this guy are why they'll never fix pvp
they're a glutton for punishment and will live and die with their ****ty *** game design
"If you are not able and or willing to do this, then GTFO of PvP and go back to the PvE carebear all warm, fuzzy, sunshiney all the time rainbows and unicorns fantasy fiction mmorpg content." - epitome of ignorance is bliss
As long as you need full T2 pvp gear to even start thinking about queuing for PvP, but can't get it because you need to pvp to get it you'll have a loop which will ensure low player numbers and therefore badly balanced games.
You just need to play a lot
sooner or later you will get enough points to buy better pieces
I win some and lose some
But
very often get points
This is true, pvp gear is super easy to get compared to BIS enchants that cost over 12kk AD.
First, Yes if you are a "7" but play as a "10" then you are treated as a "10" this is why the solution should be around matching players with similar gear not trying to assess total "skill" it just doesnt work. Because while a "7" could play like a "10" if that "7" is paired with a "1" he will end up playing more like a "5" himself because of being outnumbered. The "10" can fall back on his gear to assist, while the 7 cannot. So it goes both ways there which again is why a skill elo system cannot work.
I agree BIS PVE =/= BIS PVP. This is part of where the issue would be... However as mentioned below its not hard to get the PVP gear. While the differences are pretty big, if you took a BIS PVE player and farmed him the T2 PVP set, he would still perform pretty well compared to most. Eventhough his stat values, value different things, there really is no easy way to create "fair pvp".
So it would be the BIS PVE player who would maybe suffer for having a high total item level, while not being optimal for PVP. Well whats the alternative because we are currently IN that similar situation. BIS PVE players getting rolled by BIS PVPers. Only difference is the BIS PVE player can "middle out" with a rating of a "5-6" because hes not BIS PVP and play against players with much less gear than him.... Is that really fair either?
I think this starts spilling into "dual spec" for PVE and PVP and its where the game might be headed.
However the BEST thing that can currently be done is to implement a much better "fair" system for matchmaking.
Great point. In the elo/leaderboard as it is right now, there is a "gear ceiling" if you are not bis. You will only go so far with the gear you have, you will beat lesser and equal geared players who have less skill, you will beat better geared players who have less skill. But that all stops when you run into better geared players of equal skill. Then you may put up a good fight but you are not going to win. If there were gear brackets, you would simply be at the top of your bracket. This also dismisses the pay to win argument. It is not pay to win it is more like a buy-in for the absolute top tier pvp.
I agree match making should be better. I would be for gear brackets if cryptic would actually do it. Maybe tenacity is the best measure.
I agree and this is why I like the idea so much, that the top geared players who want to be "BIS PVP" will end up really only playing themselves.
The new lvl 70 players on play themselves and it allows alt accounts to not worry about getting stomped. Overall it encourages more PVP from more players since it will always match you with similar geared players.
As someone mentioned the only way to really make PVP work is to "trivialize" the gear component of PVP, however in an MMORPG that is nearly impossible.
So the next best thing is to "trivialize" it via ONLY matching you with players in the same "gear range" that you are.
I dont know a good solution for a BIS PVE geared player who does have 4k gear score. Because they are 4k not towards pvp, their gear is probably more similar to an opponent who is like 3k gear score.
Unfortunately though any alleviation to this system ends up making it extremely complicated and ends up really only leaving room for exploiting the system.
The only two methods that COULD alleviate this would be:
Tenacity variable.
It would take your gearscore and subtrack off a variable for the LACK of tenacity. So if you have 4k total item level, the max tenacity (on a 4/4 set) is what? 1200? So lets assume it ALSO "high water marks" your maximum tenacity achieved.
So a player with full PVE gear who has no tenacity would be 4k total item level - (1200-0) = 2800 total item level for PVP purposes.
A player who has equipped two pieces of PVP gear at some point and lets say had 600 tenacity (even if its not equipped now) would show: 4,000 - (1200-600) = 3,400 total item level.
So this would alleviate that issue to some extend.
However then youll run into issues where people dont know, they equipped full pvp gear but que without it and dont realize they are gimped etc. I mean it would be only 1 option.
The Second and FAR less likely option is to create "dual spec" where you have PVP slots and PVE slots. The "highwater mark" item level would be based on the number on your PVP slot tab only.
However this would be a LONG ways off....
Overall, the easiest solution atm that would make the most sense would be to roll out the BASE total item level matchmaking then you can make some minor adjustments based on tenacity or something. It needs to be simple to it finds games quickly. I guess if your a PVE player with 4k+ item level you probably know enough about the game to realize that you wont excel in PVP anyways and it might be time to get a PVP set for that purpose. Considering the Grim T2 pvp set is actually quite good and doesnt cost much to get, I dont think thats much of an issue.
Yeah this is why I lean more towards just a flat total item level system.
A player with full rank 10+ can pretty easily get a good set of PVP gear and just swap those out. While the build may not be optimal for PVP and we cant change that easily, however its MUCH easier to throw down a respect and spend a few gold to swap out gear and be competitive. So while not "optimal" its also not that bad.
The easiest and most simple solution for TODAY is to create the high water mark item level. Based a matchmaking system around that number and then based on CLASS makeup.
This creates objective "brackets" for matchmaking and would EASILY drop que times quite a bit for most people.
I think a range of 500 points then it increases by 100 points for each additional minute in the que.
So a player with 3,200 item level. It will look for players between 2,700-3,700. After 2 minutes it will be up to 2,500-3,900. You will easily find players in that range VERY quickly.
Its the BIS players that may be sitting in que for much longer but they will have much better games.
GS of 4,500 will basically be a 4,000+ for a minute, then 3,900+ then 3,800+ etc. Itll take probably 5-10 minutes in que but at that point itll be looking for 3,500+ players to fill the slot. Again much more evenly matched than a pug stomp.
The "balanced team" approach doesnt work" You have to have everyone on the same "level" and then create the "balance" based on class makeup.
Thus you 'null' the effect gear has to some extent. Then each team is made up of ideally 1 of each class and it will be MUCH more balanced and fair.